


in starlight

by orphan_account



Category: X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Dragon Wooseok, Explicit Sexual Content, Family Issues, M/M, Major Emotional Repression, Mutual Pining, Prince Yohan, minor animal death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 22:00:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20767592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Wooseok is a dragon, resigned to live in solitude for the rest of his life on a mountain peak unreachable to anyone else.Yohan is a prince sent to slay the dragon. He finds Wooseok instead.





	in starlight

The ground is damp.

When Wooseok wakes, his back is soaked and there’s still water clinging to his lashes. His limbs ache as he sits up and for a moment he simply stays on the ground, staring outside the mouth of the cave.

There are birds chirping nearby, so he couldn’t have slept for that long. It was morning when he fell asleep. That, or he slept an entire twenty-four hours—but the presence of passing rain tells him otherwise. It never rains during the night, here.

After gathering his bearings (a task which takes him ten minutes of zoning out), he stands up and brushes himself off. It’s not cold or hot out, but it is humid, and he already dreads having to leave the relative comfort of his home. 

On the walls, trickles of blue magic run down, pooling at the bottom before being swept up again. A long time ago, someone—or something—had protected this place. Wooseok’s been living here for the past five years of his life and he’s never seen them, so he presumes them dead. He wishes he could thank them. It keeps most of the moist air out.

The same can’t be said for the rain or water. Magic fades over time, and Wooseok’s knowledge of magic is elementary as best. One day, the cave will begin letting bugs in, and that’s when Wooseok will have to move. 

His days lately have been mundane, the same boring routine with nothing to bring him excitement. Nothing comes to him, and nothing could convince Wooseok to leave his area, and so everything stays the same. It’s emotionally exhausting to be stuck in mediocrity, but it could be worse.

He could be dead, and no matter how masochistic he may seem, he wants to live for what little he enjoys.

When he exits the cave, a flurry of birds comes towards him. One lands on his head and pecks at him. At first they were afraid of him, but it seems after generations of their breeding, they’ve gotten used to his presence. Maybe a little too used to him. He brushes the bird off of his head and it chirps indignantly, landing on a branch hanging over him instead.

“I’ll feed you later,” Wooseok mumbles. The birds don’t understand him, of course, but they recognize him. His smell. And they know he’s the one who brings them food. He sighs. He never wanted to become responsible for any sort of living creature, but he doesn’t exactly have a choice now.

The birds follow him as he makes his way to the stream. Years ago, when he arrived, he spent days upon days slaving to create a proper path from his home to water. He brought seeds from lower altitudes and planted them by the stream; most died, but he continued over and over until some kept. 

The birds chorus as he stops by the water. He wonders what they did before he came and gave them food and trees to sit on. He’d like to think that despite his reluctance to become a bird owner, they have happier lives now.

“Here,” Wooseok says, pointing at a worm squirming in the dirt. The birds follow his finger in unison and then all dive for the worm at once, squabbling with each other like children. He laughs and ducks into the water.

The first thing he does every day is wash himself. Then, he collects worms for the birds and whatever scraps of edible foliage he can find. It’s important to keep the birds well-fed, lest they eat what little food he can find for himself. Getting food takes up most of his day, usually until the sun sets.

At night, he starts a fire and roasts nuts over it, for taste. Fire is the only type of magic he trusts himself to do. The birds all fly away on sight from it. He can’t blame them for it. He would too, if he were them.

After he eats, he curls up on his bed of grass and waits for sleep to come. And then he wakes up again, sometimes in the middle of the night and sometimes in the early morning—whatever time it is, it doesn’t matter. His routine is the same.

It could be worse, he reminds himself. There are worse way he could spend _forever. _And he has no doubts he’ll be here until the day he wastes away.

Or: so he thought.

Sometimes the birds don’t come. Sometimes they disappear, and Wooseok searches for them for a while. If he finds them, it’s usually on the ground, bleeding out from a fight or chase. If he doesn’t, he hopes their death was painless. 

But there’s always a few, at least. The parents, especially, follow him carefully. They know he’ll take care of them and their chicks. He doesn’t particularly care for talking to them or not, nowadays—he just appreciates the songs they sing as they follow him. Their melodies change with every generation. 

He’s never been completely _alone_ here. There was always the birds, and sometimes other animals too; a stray fox, or a fish who lost its way from downstream. 

He’s never been alone here, until now.

“Huh,” he says to himself, looking around the clearing. He waits a few moments, and waits a few minutes, before realizing that nothing is coming. Not even a single cry. 

_It’s fine_, he tells himself. It’s getting warmer, and the birds like to nest on the other side of the stream, where Wooseok doesn’t pluck the berries and nuts. _It’s fine_. It’s unusual, but not unrealistic for them to have moved further. 

It’s strange, though, bathing himself alone. Not being able to quip about the stillness of the water and the harsh beaming of the sun. The birds may not understand, but they always listen attentively. Like students to a preacher. Perhaps being around the birds gave him too much of a power trip. Maybe they were revolting against him somehow for talking too much.

Laughing, he splashes his face and allows the dirt to wash off. _It’s fine_. The birds are creatures too, with feelings Wooseok can’t understand. They’re fine. _It’s fine_.

He doesn’t know what to do with the worms he collects that day, so he leaves them near the stream. Out in the open, the birds will be able to spot them easily, and so he carefully moves aside the brush so nothing is concealing them.

And then he goes to eat his nuts, like always, and slaps on the grass, like always. Everything else is fine.

But it’s not. Something is _wrong_.

The worms are still there the next morning. Wooseok hasn’t felt true worry in years, so long that he thought he might be dying when he suddenly felt anxiety pool in his stomach. He chokes up seeing the worms lay dead on the ground, then internally slaps himself.

They’re just _birds_. They probably just moved to another part of the mountain. But Wooseok isn’t sure he’s worried about the birds, rather than himself.

He ends up picking less food that day, because being alone makes him admittedly demotivated. It’s still more than enough to keep a stockpile in his home, but he feels a bit like a failure when he gets back and sits on his bed. 

This place is his getaway from the rest of the world. The world that gave him too many emotions. And yet here’s here on the verge of tears because of some _birds _he got emotionally attached to. Maybe he’s doomed to be like this no matter where he is.

_This _being alone. He’s alone again, he supposes. It’s been a while.

Unfortunately or fortunately, he’s not sure—but his alone-time doesn’t last long. However, it’s not the birds that find him again. It’s a person. A human.

Wooseok heard him from inside his cave, and after freaking out for a solid ten seconds, tip-toed outside. He’s heard hunters occasionally further down the mountain, but never up here. It’s too cold during the winter, and too hot during the summer. The slope is steep and Wooseok thinks only those with exceptional balance would be able to make it without falling.

That makes him wary. This person came here with a purpose, then; no one would make such a dangerous trek for sport.

The person—a man, as it turns out—is much less intimidating than the image Wooseok conjured in his mind over the course of his ten minutes of trying to find him. He’s dressed in expensive clothes, considerably dirtied. Wooseok thinks he recognizes the crest on the sleeve, but he can’t place it.

A knight of sorts. Someone scouting the area? There’s no way for him to keep up with politics from up here, and he wonders if there’s some kind of war coming. He dreads having to let his mountain be used for _war camps_.

The man is holding a map. Upside down. He looks extremely puzzled, and Wooseok realizes he has no idea that he’s oriented his map wrong.

Wooseok is behind a tree, one of the oldest and tallest in this area. He’s, _ahem_, compact, for a lack of a better word, but he’d never be able to hide from the birds. They’re too perceptive. This man is pretty much the opposite.

The man stares at his map, Wooseok watches him rather blatantly from the side, and they stay like this for what feels like ages. The man spends so long standing around that both their legs begin to fall asleep. He keeps looking around, as if glancing around the clearing for the hundredth time will help him reorient himself to his location. And then, of course, when that fails, instead of moving—he simply returns back to his map.

Quite frankly, Wooseok is more bored watching this human than he would be picking his nuts and berries. At least that allows for movement. And while normally the prospect of having a person nearby would pique his interest, this person doesn’t seem to match Wooseok’s intelligence.

He’s ready to simply leave (because he knows there’s no way this man would be able to find him if he goes back to his cave) when a bug bites his ankle.

“Ow,” he mutters, rubbing his skin. He flicks the offending bug off of him. He’ll have to clean it with water later, just in case. 

It’s only when he hears the grating noise of _metal _that he realizes he’s far too used to speaking to himself out loud.

“Who’s there?” the man calls. If Wooseok’s ears aren’t betraying him, his voice is shaking. Well, that certainly makes him feel better. The man is scared of him and he hasn’t even seen him yet. He should be easy to scare off, at least. “Show yourself!”

Wooseok turns, right as the man rounds the corner of the tree. His blade nearly grazes Wooseok’s chest and they both jerk back.

While the man’s clothes are dirty, his sword isn’t. 

They stare at each other. The man is a lot taller and wider than him, but he doesn’t seem that scary after Wooseok gets a good look at him up close. Rather than looking like he’s about to go into battle, the red blotches on his cheeks make him look like he’s about to overheat.

“Wh—” The man lowers his sword slowly. “Why are you naked?!” he yells, sheathing his sword and covering his eyes. 

_Oh. _Wooseok forgot.

“Well, no one usually comes up here.” Wooseok takes a step back, out of sword’s range. “Why are you clothed?”

“What kind of a question is that?!” The man is blushing so hard his hands are becoming red as well.

“It’s basically the same question you asked me?”

The man peeks out at him from between his fingers and makes something between a laugh and a choking noise. Wooseok tilts his head.

“O—kay then,” the man mumbles, lowering his hands and curling them into fists at his sides. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?” Wooseok shoots back.

“Why do you keep answering me with questions?!” the man whines.

Wooseok can’t help it. He laughs. The man may be large and with a weapon, but the way he speaks is more like a child than anything.

“You’re the one intruding in my home, not the other way around,” Wooseok points out.

The man seems to consider this for a moment. After a moment, he relents and offers his hand to Wooseok. Wooseok stares at it blankly.

“Kim Yohan, heir prince to the land we stand on right now.” Wooseok isn’t as surprised as he should probably be; the expensive steel gave away that he must be rich, and being rich generally provides better opportunities. Ones that would lead him here, of all places. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Though, it is rather curious that a prince would come this high, apparently without an entourage. That, or they simply died on the way, but Yohan seems a bit too chipper to have seen much death on the way up.

He’s looking for something, Wooseok surmises. That’s really the only option, isn’t it? But Wooseok can’t think of anything here worth such a trek. There are some rare plants and interesting rock formations, but neither of those are particularly... _exciting_ and deserving of a days-long journey. 

Yohan waits with a nervous grin for Wooseok to shake his hand back. Eventually, Wooseok feels too much pity to just leave him hanging, and shakes it back.

“Aren’t you going to tell me your name too?” Yohan prompts.

Wooseok considers it. He supposes there’s no harm in telling him; it’s not as if his name has any power. It’s just been so long since he heard someone say it, he’s not sure how to feel.

“Wooseok,” he says simply.

“Wooseok...?”

“That’s it. Just Wooseok.”

“Oh.” He’s not sure why Yohan is so surprised. Wooseok lives alone on a mountain. He doesn’t particularly have any use for names, let alone family names. 

“I’m, um, looking for someon—something,” Yohan explains, confirming Wooseok’s suspicions. 

“Who?”

“There’s said to be a dragon that lives somewhere up here.” Yohan straightens his back and puts on the look of someone proud, but it doesn’t really suit him. “I’m here to slay it.”

_Ah_. Well. Thank goodness Wooseok spends all his time as a human, then.

Quite frankly, it’s been so long since he was a real dragon that he’s not sure if he could properly transform anymore. He’s never missed it; despite all the stories his parents used to tell him about being proud, he prefers having opposable thumbs.

Even so, it doesn’t take a genius to realize Yohan is searching for _him_. Wherever he got his task from, they clearly failed to inform him that Wooseok was living as a human.

And Wooseok obviously isn’t going to correct him.

“I see,” he says simply. “Well, I don’t know what dragon you’re looking for exactly. Sorry.” It comes out a lot less sincere-sounding than he meant it to.

“Really?” Yohan’s shoulders slump. “I came all the way up here, everyone said they were so certain that...” he trails off. “I’m sorry too. I’m, um, intruding in your home, right? Are you some kind of sorcerer? I didn’t know it was possible to survive this far up.”

“Something like that,” Wooseok answers. Yohan eyes him, well aware that he’s being purposely vague.

“Well, you must be some sort of magic user. You’re—naked and not covered in bug bites! No regular person could do that.” Yohan gestures to Wooseok’s body without actually looking at him.

Wooseok snorts and covers his grin with his hand. “You’re more observant than I thought, given how long you were standing here doing nothing.”

“Hey! I wasn’t... I thought I got lost. I mean, I’m pretty sure I am lost.” Yohan’s brows furrow. “Wait, how long did you watch me for?”

Waving his question off, Wooseok nods towards the direction of his cave. “Do you want shelter for tonight?”

Wooseok’s self-preservation skills must be deteriorating if he’s allowing a human (tasked with killing him, even it he’s unaware of it) into his home. But for some reason, he quite likes talking to someone. Just for a day, maybe. And then he’ll send Yohan off to tell his people of his failure.

“You have a house?” Yohan seems surprised. 

“Something like that,” Wooseok says again.

“Will you answer any of my questions properly?”

“I told you my name. Wasn’t that the most important one you asked?” Yohan doesn’t have an answer to that. “You can either follow me or stay here. It’s your choice.” They both know which is better.

Turning around, he’s promptly hit in the back of the head by a mess of fabric.

“Can you please put this on first!” Yohan all but shouts. Wooseok takes the fabric and holds it up. It seems to be some sort of cape, but he can guess what Yohan wants him to do with it.

He makes a show of letting out an exasperated sigh. “As you wish.”

It’s loose around his waist, but fits well enough at his hips to not fall down. He tightens the back into a knot and kicks his leg experimentally. When it doesn’t fall down, he thinks it must be good enough.

Much to Wooseok’s amusement, Yohan staunchly looks at his face the entire time they walk back. Being a prince, he should have lots of training in communication. Right? That seems reasonable. But Wooseok never would’ve guessed that now.

He finds he quite likes the feeling of the cloth around him. Not because he requires modesty, but because it reminds him of _before_, when his mother would sew him a new set of clothes every year. She would use only the most expensive fabric every time. It feels the same as the one he’s wearing right now.

It also makes him a bit sad, but it’s not new for him to feel tired at the mere thought of his family. At least he can be tired _and_ comfortable. 

Yohan doesn’t say anything when they reach Wooseok’s home, though he’s clearly holding back by the way his entire face changes when he realizes Wooseok lives in a cave. That must be those royal manners coming through. 

Wooseok puts on a smile and gestures towards what he deems his “main area”—with his grass-bed, a fire pit, his stockpile of food, and various other things he’s collected over the years.

“Here you go.”

Yohan looks at him. Wooseok looks back, still smiling, until Yohan finally exhales.

“Thank you,” he says, much more stiffly than how he spoke before.

Wooseok smile grows into genuine laughter at Yohan’s pinched expression. “You don’t need to pretend to be fine, you know. I’m not so out of touch to think you’ve ever had to sleep in a cave, prince,” he teases. “But I assure you it’ll be better than sleeping outside. This cave is magicked against the elements.”

“No!” Yohan says instantly. “I’m not... I’m... grateful. I am. I was just surprised. That you, y’know, live in a, um, a cave.”

“Is it surprising?” Wooseok questions. He doesn’t think so. How would he build a house up here? Yohan must severely overestimate his abilities. 

“I don’t think anyone living in a cave could ever _not_ be strange, unless you’re a cyclops of some sorts.” Yohan squints at him at that. “You aren’t a—”

“No, prince. I’m not a cyclops. I would hope your expensive education taught you that most cyclops live near the sea.”

Yohan pouts. “You’re already weird. I don’t know how much weirder you can get.”

“Not as much as you think, I would imagine.” Wooseok sits down on his grass-bed, tucking the cloth both over and under him to hide himself, for Yohan’s sake. “You can sit wherever you’d like. It’s not as if there’s a lack of space in here.”

There is the entire rest of the cave for Yohan to set his stuff down in, which—while not massive, is certainly not what would be considered small. Yohan chooses to sit right across from him, on the other side of the fire pit. He shrugs off his backpack and lays his sword on the cave floor.

Wooseok appreciates the distance in between them. Not too far, certainly not too close. Enough that they can keep talking with Wooseok having to fear Yohan will grab him or something along those lines.

“It’s a lot warmer in here than it is outside,” Yohan observes out loud. “But it’s damp. Does it allow rain in?”

“No, not exactly.” Wooseok follows Yohan’s gaze to the faded markings on the wall, from whoever was here before him. Wooseok’s tried for years to make out what they are—at first thinking it was some ancient language, but now he thinks they might be pictures. Like art. He tries to imagine children living here once upon a time and fails. “I didn’t place the magic here. And I don’t know how to keep its strength up, so it’s fading over time.”

“You didn’t do this?” Yohan asks, puzzled.

“No. I only came here, um, a few years ago.” As soon as the words are out, he realizes his mistake. But Yohan doesn’t seem to register his slip at all. “I used to live further down the mountain, but wolves were beginning to take over the area. There’s less competition up here.”

“That sounds lonely,” Yohan mumbles. “I can’t imagine living on a mountain my whole life.”

In truth, Wooseok didn’t live anywhere near this place before a few years ago. If Yohan is where Wooseok assumes he’s from, they lived in the same city. He wants to ask how it’s changed, but his lie makes it so it would be too abrupt to suddenly ask. He has no reason to care about the place Yohan’s from, unless it was personal to him.

“That’s because you grew up in luxury, prince.” Wooseok laughs. He doesn’t mean it in a bad way, only as a fact. “Us lowly commoners have to find refuge wherever we can.” 

“I’m not—you don’t need to call me that,” Yohan says quickly. 

“What? Prince? I think if I called you by your given name I’d get struck down.”

That brings a chuckle out of Yohan. “... There’s no one here but us, so.”

“I was always taught to be treat royalty with respect.”

“Then I order you to call me by my name!” 

“What a misuse of power,” Wooseok smirks. Yohan blanches, hurrying to dispute Wooseok’s words, but Wooseok continues, “Okay, Yohan. How old are you?”

“We might be around the same age? I just turned twenty-one years,” Yohan answers, a hint of pride in his voice. 

“I turn twenty-four years this year,” Wooseok muses. “But I don’t know what day or month it is, so I don’t know if I’ve turned yet. The seasons are changing, so it should be soon.”

“You’re older than me, then.” Yohan leans back on his elbows and says, a little too brightly, “Wooseok hyung?” Testing the name on his tongue. Wooseok’s nose crinkles.

“It sounds strange,” he mutters. 

“You don’t have any younger siblings?”

“Not anymore.” Yohan looks on, shoulders suddenly tensing when Wooseok replies. Yohan may be clumsy in his words, but Wooseok is beginning to realize how long it’s been since he last spoke to someone by how quickly he accidentally makes things awkward. “Um, and I only had sisters, so...” He leaves out the part about them actually being his cousins. 

Yohan brightens. “Me too. I have two sisters. Wait, hold on.” He undoes the knot on his bag and rummages around through his things, pulling out an assortment of items: some flint, various different patterned cloths, a noisy satchel of coins, the map he had been looking at earlier, and then, finally, a small, worn piece of paper. 

“This was painted of us when they were young children.” Yohan turns the paper around and Wooseok can see it’s a watercolour piece. The faces are faded into grey blobs and the edges are smeared with dirt, but Wooseok gets the general idea by the two small figures and the one large one. “Sorry, it’s kinda dirty...”

“You carry it around everywhere,” Wooseok assumes.

“More than I should. At this rate, it’ll tear in half.” He brushes his fingers over the figures in the photo, looking at them with honey dripping from his eyes. “But when I’m apart from them, it makes me feel less lonely.”

Yohan stares at the photo until Wooseok clears his throat and offers him a comforting smile. “You must love them a lot.”

“Yeah.”

He wraps the paper in a bundle of cloth and sets it away from the fire pit. 

“I have other things in here too, like...” He pulls out more clothes. “I was going to change into these, but maybe you could use them instead.”

“Me?” Wooseok points to himself. “I don’t really want any fancy clothes.”

“You said it yourself; it’s getting colder. It’s not as if I don’t have tons back home. And I can wash the clothes I’m wearing tomorrow before I leave.” Yohan gets on his knees and holds out the clothes to him. 

He really doesn’t need them, but he can’t think of a good excuse for why he doesn’t get cold outside, so he decides to go along with it. It could be worse. On the list of gifts Wooseok’s received in his life, expensive clothes are near the top. 

“Thank you,” he settles on saying. Yohan spins around without getting up.

“I’m not looking,” Yohan promises. 

“I don’t care if you stare,” Wooseok says. Yohan takes it in the wrong way, judging by how he chokes on the air. 

Albeit, he supposes he doesn’t mind in that way, either. Yohan is more than attractive enough for Wooseok to ogle back. The issues they might have aren’t because of their physical appearances. 

Not that he intends to let Yohan know any more about the supposed dragon on the mountaintop; he’ll turn Yohan around and point him in the other direction. Yohan doesn’t have any reason not to listen, and he’s been surprisingly amicable thus far, excluding the first few moments where he nearly sliced Wooseok’s head off.

He unrolls the clothes. They’re much less formal than what Yohan is wearing right now—a sweater made from lamb’s wool and a carefully-made insulated pair of trousers. Wooseok worries he might get _too _hot in it.

Undoing the cloth around his hips, he tugs on the sweater and than the pants. He’s unused to having his body be so restricted; he flails his limbs around, annoyed by how he can’t simply spread himself out.

“This _itches_,” Wooseok complains, scratching his stomach and then his arms and then his back and then his stomach again. 

“I’ll keep your preference in mind for next time: no itchy sweaters.” Yohan faces Wooseok again and looks him up and down. Similar to when they first met, but considerably less flustered. Like this, with a small, satisfied smile tugging on his lips, he looks much more like a prince. 

_Next time. _Wooseok shakes his head.

He knows Yohan’s type. Not from experience, but vivid stories work just as well, if not better for the imagination. Pampered members of the royal family with good intentions and pure hearts; they’re always the type to get killed or ruined first when kingdoms go to war. 

This journey was supposed to toughen him up, Wooseok thinks. Maybe he got some sort of prophecy to kill a dragon, and Wooseok just so happened to be the nearest one. Or maybe he was challenging himself by trying to kill something fiercer than a human. 

Yohan’s smile is easygoing and Wooseok can only imagine how good he is at charming the young girls of their allied factions. And their fathers, looking for a suitable hand in marriage for them.

“It looks good,” Yohan says, proving Wooseok’s exact point. It almost comes off as _sleazy_, but Wooseok knows it’s a habit rather than intentional. There’s no reason for Yohan to flirt with him like he’s a candidate for an alliance.

“Thank you,” Wooseok says, and Yohan brightens even more.

As the sun begins to set, Wooseok finds himself surprised at how well Yohan is taking being lost with a stranger. He doesn’t try and pull his sword on Wooseok, or make jabs at Wooseok’s slightness and Yohan’s obvious advantage in a fight (both things Wooseok would do, if he were in Yohan’s position). 

Yohan’s approach is all communication rather than intimidation. He plays to his strengths, certainly.

Wooseok watches as Yohan starts a fire. He tries for a few minutes, which is a perfectly normal amount of time, but Wooseok is too used to having fire at the snap of his fingers.

“Let me try.”

“Go ahead.” Yohan shrugs.

Wooseok takes the steel tip and the flint and carefully times his release of magic so that it appears like he did not, in fact, conjure it out of thin air. Yohan’s eyes widen.

“I’m going to be honest, I didn’t think you were the type. How did you do that in one try?” Yohan gasps, curious.

Wooseok squints at him. “Do you think I’ve been living up here without being able to make a fire?” He drops the steel tip and flint and kicks it back to Yohan. “What do you mean by ‘not the type’?”

Yohan puts his things back into his knapsack, busying his hands and eyes as he speaks, “you know.”

“Yes...?” 

“You’re like...” Beneath his messy hair, the tips of Yohan’s ears go pink. “Like... small. Not the type to get your hands dirtied doing work.”

Wooseok is half amused, half terribly offended. “Do you say such _charming _stereotypes to all your suitors as well, or is it just me?” he drawls.

Yohan jumps in his spot, stumbling over his words: “No—what! No! Of course not. I was just pointing it out! I know being tin—of a slight build has nothing to do with your potential skill.” Wooseok waits for his rambling to finish. “I’m sure you’re even better than I am! At surviving! And stuff!”

“I am,” Wooseok says with absolute certainty as Yohan finishes his blabbering and begins to lose steam. 

“You could probably wrestle a bear with your bare hands!”

“... I wouldn’t go that far,” Wooseok laughs, then waves his hand. “I’m just teasing you. I’m well aware of what your intentions were when you spoke before. You just embarrass so easily.”

“I—” Yohan swallows, picking at the torn fabric of his tunic. “No I don’t,” he continues, rather unconvincingly. 

“Oh? And yet you were about to pass out earlier when you realized I was clothesless.” A wicked grin spreads across Wooseok’s face. “Surely the prince isn’t that conservative.”

“People don’t usually walk around naked outside, you know! It was a bit shocking!”

“Why does it matter? No one else is around to see it. Only I, and now you. Unless you’re saying there’s something distracting about _me_ in part—”

Yohan clamps a hand over Wooseok’s mouth, startling him.

“Can we please change the subject,” Yohan says meekly. 

“I suppose,” Wooseok sighs. “But I was having _so _much fun.”

He relishes in being able to turn the tables onto the prince. Yohan crawls back to his spot, knees tucked to his chest, and Wooseok wants to laugh more. He looks like a sulking child. 

Wooseok admits he might have gotten ahead of himself, teasing Yohan about things he clearly has no business talking about. But Yohan made it so easy.

He supposes that’s another facet to Yohan’s abilities: making people feel comfortable enough to so easily joke around with him. Wooseok fell for it, but he’s not too worried. He doesn’t think Yohan is going to kill him nor court him. 

Though, _not killing him _is conditional agreement. 

“So, um.” Yohan struggles to change the subject. “If you’re such a good survivalist, how _have _you been surviving? Has it truly not been through magic?”

“No. Only learning what to eat and not to eat, and far and low to travel without encountering any wild animals.”

“That’s quite incredible,” Yohan admits, sounding reluctant but thoroughly impressed. “You’re fortunate it appears the dragon that lived here moved on long ago.”

“Indeed,” Wooseok agrees absently, playing with a loose thread on his sweater. “I have no idea what dragon you’re speaking of.” 

“I was afraid of encountering it before I reached the peak, since the ground was so steep. I don’t think any person would be able to fight on the side of a mountain.” Yohan laughs. “It took me much longer than I thought to get up here.”

“How long did you travel?”

Yohan taps his chin with his index finger. “Two weeks, perhaps?”

Wooseok tries to recall how long it took _him_. A month of aimlessly wandering or so? he thinks. But he didn’t have a map, or a destination in mind. 

“That seems quite long,” Wooseok says carefully, not wanting to hurt Yohan’s pride.

“I’ve been up here for days. I have a camp a few kilometres off, on the other side of the stream, but it’s not nearly as comfortable as here. I’ve been killing birds for food. I ran out of my rations a few days ago.”

_Oh, _Wooseok thinks distantly. That’s where they went. Yohan is waiting for some sort of comment in return, but all Wooseok can do is frown at his feet, a ball of anxiety dropping to the pit of his stomach suddenly.

It’s silly. It’s not as if the birds knew or truly cared who he was. But on the other hand, that’s why Wooseok liked them so; he knew exactly what their motivations were, and they offered him companionship in exchange. 

And now they’re dead. Or most of them are, and Wooseok doubts they’ll want to come back to this area after part of their flock was brutally and abruptly slaughtered. 

“Wooseok?” Yohan nudges him gently with his shoulder, prompting Wooseok to look back up. “Um, I mean. Wooseok hyung?”

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I was just thinking.”

“... About birds?”

Wooseok sighs, running a hand through his hair. He doesn’t know how to say this without sounding stupid. He wouldn’t even say it normally, but something about Yohan’s wide eyes tugs at his heartstrings. Like a puppy’s would. 

He wonders how Yohan can seem so constantly concerned for him, when they’ve only known each other for minus twenty-four hours. Maybe he thinks Wooseok is being held captive by the fearsome dragon. If only he knew.

“Those birds have lived here for a long time. Not many animals are willing to live this far up, even in the summer.” Wooseok purses his lips, turning back to the fire. He can feel Yohan’s gaze heavy on his back. “The rest of them seemed to have been scared off.”

The first thing he expects is for Yohan to laugh at him (given how many times he has already), or simply ask why he cares when birds obviously can’t comprehend his loneliness. But instead Yohan throws an arm around his shoulder, so sudden that Wooseok’s first instinct is to jump back. 

Yohan’s hold is too tight, keeping him still, and after a moment he manhandles Wooseok into some sort of _hug_.

He can’t remember the last time he received a hug. It was far longer than only before he left the rest of the world. When he was a child, perhaps. It’s normal for children to hug each other, and by the time he became a teenager, he had no friends close enough to hug.

“I’m sorry,” Yohan mumbles. His breath fans over Wooseok’s neck. “I didn’t know.” Wooseok shivers.

Pushing Yohan off, he shifts back so they’re further apart again. His neck tingles from where Yohan spoke against it. 

“It’s fine,” Wooseok says, even though it may not be. “You’re right, you didn’t know.”

“I assumed that—that no one lived up here. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It wasn’t exactly an uneducated guess. I don’t think my own assumption would be any different, if I were in your place.” Wooseok clears his throat. “Besides, they’re just... birds.”

Yohan opens his mouth to say something, then seemingly decides better and closes it. A frown inches its way onto his face, though, as he agrees half-heartedly. “I’m still sorry.”

Wooseok shrugs in response and tries not to think about how eerily silent the clearing will become after Yohan leaves. 

“It’s fine,” Wooseok repeats, not having the energy to make the words sound convincing. Yohan raises his hand to grasp his shoulder, then hesitates mid-air curls it into a fist at his side again instead.

“Tell me about the plants up here?” Yohan asks after a brief period of silence.

It’s a mundane topic he’s sure Yohan has no interest in, but Wooseok accepts the obvious distraction and draws the different plants out with his finger. Yohan listens attentively, asks questions and hums at the appropriate times. 

He thinks that Yohan might just like the sound of his voice, judging by how Yohan falls asleep slowly, still listening to Wooseok talk.

Wooseok gets quieter and quieter as Yohan’s eyes shut and his breathing evens out. Now that Yohan’s asleep, he realizes the awful logistics of having a human in his dead, empty cave. 

Unsure of what else to do and too afraid to wake Yohan up, lest he be unable to fall back asleep, Wooseok leaves him there and goes to his grass-bed on the other side of the fire. For once, it doesn’t take Wooseok hours of mindless staring at the wall to fall asleep.

Rather than staring at the faded marks on the wall, that night, he takes hours of mindless staring at Yohan instead, pondering the day to come.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: [@kaetreun](https://twitter.com/kaetreun)  
cc: [@kaetreun](https://curiouscat.me/kaetreun)
> 
> i have the flu so comment or talk to me to distract me from my misery pls


End file.
